River of Smoke by Amatav Ghosh

During British rule, India-cultivated opium was shipped to Canton in massive amounts. Fortunes were made, lives were ruined.

River of Smoke
By Amitav Ghosh's River of Smoke,
Penguin, 416 pages, $32.00

By:Nancy Wigston Published on Sat Oct 22 2011

During British rule, India-cultivated opium was shipped to Canton in massive amounts. Fortunes were made, lives were ruined.

In River of Smoke, the second installment of his opium trilogy — Booker-shortlisted Sea of Poppies was its predecessor — Amitav Ghosh launches his cast, some old, some new, toward China, as the first Opium War looms.

David Mitchell’s remarkable The 1000 Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (2010) explored similar east-west tensions as a tiny Dutch trading post faced conflict with the secretive Japanese mainland. Ghosh’s history is more freewheeling, unveiling the seductions of 1839 Canton (barred to foreign women), where British millionaires fell passionately in love and waltzed at opulent parties, while exhibiting near-universal contempt for Chinese drug laws.

Ghosh’s controlling metaphor is the cyclone; the man adores a good storm, be it natural or political. During the book’s pivotal tempest, a merchant trying to secure his cargo emerges from below decks opium-smeared, filthy, and ill — presaging his fate on land. This cyclone is recalled in the densely written first chapter — which readers unfamiliar with Sea of Poppies could probably skip. An enforced calm then descends, as Chinese officials enforce laws prohibiting drugs to land at Canton.

With Bahram Modi, a Parsi (Zoroastrian) from Bombay, we observe Canton’s “teems of touts,” sailors on shore leave, “bands of beggars…clattering their clappers;” and barbers “shaving foreheads and braiding queues under portable sunshades of bamboo matting.” A master at portraying the entanglements between west and east — characters often speak Pidgin, trade’s lingua franca — Ghosh takes us places we never thought to go and then don’t want to leave, from the ornate interiors of a Parsi clipper ship to the hustle and intrigue of Canton’s lanes and neighbourhoods.

Respected by his peers, Bahram also found love with a local woman with whom he fathered a son. “If not for Canton he would have lived his life like a man without a shadow.” But the woman has died; the son, vanished. Returning on the fog-bound river from a banquet, he succumbs to the seduction he peddles, “revelling in the supreme contentment that only opium could confer: that marvellous god-like lightness in which the body and the spirit were freed from gravity, of all kinds.”

Real names, speeches, real racism — the brutal, familiar voices of born-again capitalism — propel the narrative to its sad fate. Luckily Ghosh spices his brew with the letters of Anglo-Indian painter Robin Chinnery, whose gossipy missives to his horticulturalist friend, Paulette, lighten the mood. Robin belongs to us; he would doubtless adapt to text messaging. From his expat hotel, he breathlessly shares tales of art classes, erotic love, and his youthful excitement at living in a multicultural city, doomed or not.

Even as Canton society is falling apart, Ghosh, a tireless researcher, takes time to list the names of the myriad dishes served on Zoroastrian New Year; earlier Bahram explained the complex etymology of “samosa,” his favorite snack. Ironically, his own addiction hollows him out, leaving his fondness for food undiminished.

Watching things fall apart, Bahram has time to learn hard lessons; he evolves, the only figure to do so. Once he encountered Napoleon during the General’s St Helena exile. Questioned about Zoroastrianism and Zarathustra, its prophet, Bahram explained the fundamental struggle against evil. The General was quick. “Why trade in opium if it is evil?”

Years will pass before Bahram sees his chosen career in such clear terms. He replied, “Opium is like the wind or the tides: it is outside my power to affect its course.” But Napoleon wondered, “A man may die, may he not, because he sails upon the wind?” When an Emperor speaks, even an exiled Emperor, it’s advisable to listen.

Nancy Wigston is a frequent contributor to these pages.

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